Sanctuary
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: Let me rest easy. Jin x Christie.


**Um... I like this couple. So... yeah... uh, just play 'Drops of Jupiter' by Train, then maybe add some of Damian Rice's '9 Crimes' as mood songs and you'll get my inspiration.**

**Disclaimer: Tekken is not mine. Why else do you think the Mishimas are getting all the attention?**

* * *

**I**

Autumn rain is a miserable affair. All wet bark and muddy puddles. I like dry Autumn days where I can lie down under the trees and watch the kaleidoscope of leaves, auburn, woody, and gold, rustle and flow with the wind in whichever direction it takes. Aren't leaves beautiful? Even in death? It's like their souls depart after making sure that an earthly trace of their natural spirits remains in the wake of their demise. And the glowing strands of sunshine are the straight threads of a golden-haired girl's hair flowing down her back, loose and free, in the mild chill of the Fall breeze. Look carefully. She's clasping her hands in a prayer around a bunch of lilacs.

Have you ever swum in a sea of Autumn leaves? I wish I could. The only thing stopping me from listening to their call is the sense of dignified restraint that we as Mishimas have to maintain at all costs. Honor before ideals, duty before delight. It's too late for me to change, I'm afraid, no matter how many times you shake your head and click your tongue, Christie. We're born to serve our egos and to be served by our own destinies.

Archaic, isn't it?

No, I won't say a word to you. You'll know if I dream out loud enough. Do you see what I see? A sparrow pecking at a bread-crumb. Once he's done, he'll join his family in the land down south where it's warmer on the feathers and summer all year long. What's it like when the sun never ceases to touch and taste your skin? I think it may be like having a new lover. You never really get enough of each other until they start to burn right through.

But it must be a good burn, right? That's why they call them flames. They only go out once you smother them in sugar-coated hearts and ancient poems whose meaning has ceased to provoke or inspire. Poetry is dead, isn't it? The words on a piece of paper, I mean. Not a picture or a feeling. Words always escape your mind and tongue when you need them most. Pictures will never abandon that place in your heart that they unearthed. Neither does a feeling. But you can't catch a feeling like you can catch a picture. The feeling catches you.

Maybe life is one great ocean which each of us travels on in boats. And in these boats are fishing-nets which we cast out into the foam. Except that it's not fish we're catching but emotions and experiences. Can you guess what I caught in mine? It's not much I'm afraid. I've missed out on so much...

A mermaid. I caught a mermaid. Her hair is the color of bitter dark tea which I know you're secretly fond of and her skin's like milky cocoa, the type that I like to sip in private so that no one squeals over it. She likes to sing and dance with the waves when they're high even if she's rather off-key. She's a lovely dancer though. Like a ballerina with no shape or form but with the rhythm of a bird and the strength of a cat. I don't like to keep her in my net for so long because she struggles when she's entangled. She's a bit silly too for she always returns once I cut her loose. Funny little thing she is...

I caught a feeling in your eye.

See?

Come Autumn, we live.

* * *

**II**

Why is Winter so extreme and drastic in her moods? She's a lot like her cousin, Summer. They both are at their best when they're mild and sleepy. At their worst, they sneak up on you and shake you out of your reverie. Winter's doing that to my head today. She's rattling my memories so that they end up as scrambled as the knickknacks at the bottom of a child's toy-box. Some are as sharp and jagged as broken glass which cuts my feet as I walk over them. The others dim, flicker, and fade like dying neon lights in the city.

Speaking of this city, it's an ugly place. It was born ugly from the nests of a few houses crunched together like building-blocks and it grew to an ugly creature of twisted metal and concrete bones and joints. When Winter arrives, she brings along her sword of ice and snow. It is anything if not magnificent in appearance. Yet it is only a thing. A thing is heartless. She swings it around her silver mane in an arc before she brings it down, piercing it through Mother Earth's heart, freezing everything it's connected to. The water in her veins hardens to ice and the spark in her eyes weakens.

And what happens next, you wonder.

We'll curl up in our dens in hibernation waiting for the sun to warm our hearts and make them dance in the light once more. We'll sleep and dream of reuniting with our long-lost mothers, lose ourselves in nighttime fantasies of a secret passion which could break the ones who claim they love us most, and then wake to the coldness of the reality that surrounds us. Would you like to fly away? I know you would. We are too different and alike to be one whole.

Would you like me to tell you a story, Christie?

Once upon a time, there lived a king in a castle as dark as the shadows that lurked within it, whispering secrets to himself so that no one would hear his cries of agony. Years passed and the plague within his dying heart had spread to his soul, corrupting the light that had dwelt there long ago. Then one day, as he was on the brink of falling into the fire, a maiden appeared in his lair. Fair as beauty, pure as Heaven. With an outstretched hand, she reached out to him. Seeing as she was his last chance at salvation, he gripped her hand and seized her by the throat...

I won't trouble your mind with the ending. It wasn't a happy one and that is all.

Here we are then. Trying to create a happy ending for them. It is what she's always dreamed of, it is what he's always hoped for. Who are you to stab a man in the back? Who am I to break a young girl's heart?I am a Mishima, bound by duty and obligation. You are a hopelessly unselfish soul, tied to the hearts of others. I told you we were both the same, didn't I? We run through gamuts of punishment and regret for anyone but ourselves.

We are the ones that never made it to the south. Where it's warmer on the feathers and the sun shines all year long...

Bid me goodbye, Christie. Say 'Goodbye, Jin' before I awake to duty's call...

Go back to him. I'll go back to her.

I guess their predictions were true...

Come winter, we die.

* * *

**III**

Spring has finally arrived. The cherry-blossoms are in bloom. Everywhere I look, there seem to be whirlwinds of pink petals in the air. They smell of new life and all its perfection. It sickens me a bit. Cherry-blossoms are so lovely and popular that they have become quite common-place in my eyes. It's strange, isn't it? But I have always been the contrary one. The one that the others find strange because I'm different. I'm like them but I'm not. It's just the little things that I differ with them. Like how a woman's supposed to act around a man or how I'm supposed to respond to a question or even how I'm supposed to know what I need...

But I keep it to myself. Unlike the spring flowers, my thoughts lie buried beneath the earth, afraid to burst out of their seeds and grow towards the light.

Sometimes, I get tired of the cherry-blossoms. They're everywhere, in my eyes, in verse upon verse of haiku, in water-color pictures of pale-faced women peering out from behind silk kimono folds and elaborate parasols, and I hear the sweet, fluorescent pink in the voices of girls barely ready to face the truth of real, raw, aching red love. I get tired of clichéd, worn-out tales of romance and heroes and princesses because they fall like paper cards to the power that defines what can never be written in words or sketched in paint. You only feel it when you sense the thorn in your heart, tearing at your repressed blood, letting the salt of your secret tears drip, drip, drop into the crimson, making it ache more.

I need... red carnations. Blue lilacs. Proud, haughty violets with dark eyes like poppy seeds. White lilies, orange hibiscus, golden-yellow sunflowers as high as the sky, anything to help me return to a place of no rules, boundaries, white picket fences, and wrought-iron gates. Anything to be free and disorderly as the Autumn leaves in the wind.

But Spring is here so I silence my voice.

They call it 'Spring fever'. That dizzying sickness which makes you want to walk on air into the sky and dive into the blue. The clouds remind of the foam in the sea. What do they taste like? Whipped cream? Cotton candy? Or just like... air?

What are you doing now, Christie? I do wonder, you know...

Picking out linens? What type of flowers do you like? Wild orchids perhaps? You always reminded me of one. Beautiful, in a ruddy sort of way. Unusual, unrestrained, proud of her uniqueness. You could even pass for a bird of paradise. Savvy, sassy, erotic, sexy,... did I just say those? Must be the fever talking. You should wear orchids in your hair for your wedding. And an ivory dress, not a white one. Only you can carry off an ivory dress. Let your hair loose too. I want you to let it fall down your back like a waterfall. Don't wear a veil, just let the sunlight shine on your bare head and shoulders.

Even if you aren't my bride, you could at least make a fine one for him.

I'm happy, I tell myself. I'm happy that you're happy.

You are happy, aren't you?

Are you, Christie?

I see...

Come Spring, we regret.

* * *

**IV**

Summer's here. I feel bad for the flowers baking on the lawn out there. They look so tired when they droop down like tired children. Weary little heads nodding off to sleep. I'm tired too. Tired of lying and pretending that I don't think of you and wondering if you're thinking of me as well. You're still in me. The red in my cold blood, the silver in my frozen tears, the amber in the flames that dance away in my lonely heart.

I thought I killed you with a kiss.

But you lived.

And here you stay. A spark which reignites the memories I try to burn to ashes. If I fling you away into the ocean, the waves wash you back to my feet. How come you never fly anymore? You belong in freedom, barefoot, clothes aflutter in the breeze, eyes alight with a zest for dreams waiting to fulfilled. If I lose myself in my visions on purpose I still see you in the stars, waiting for the night to help you shine. Would you sing me that same song that you sang to the moon on a dry Autumn night waiting for a wish to come true? I envied the rain as it fell on your face and the sun as it kissed you good morning.

You're here. Under my sheets, beneath the water running from the shower, slipping quick as a whistle through the curtains with the same grin on your face. Your spirit smiles at me sadly and asks me questions of dying leaves and lost souls floating around the cosmos. I look away and shake you out of my head, all the while pleading with you to stay a little while longer. Only a little, just a little...

The stone on your finger burns a hole in my hand as it caresses yours. You sigh and I fall. Fall into you, over and over, careless and carefree. I awaken with the sun, my heart rises over the horizon, and I'm alive for the first time in ages. Promises printed on paper fade away to white. I forget about her, you forget about him. Come on, Christie. Won't you take my hand and soar to the clouds with me? Let's defy gravity and the bonds we have on this earth. Come on, you can do it...

Kiss me.

Breathe me.

Love me.

Say my name, 'Jin', just like you know how I like it.

Let's run off and breakaway to warmer waters with coral reefs as vast as islands and skies as deep as infinity. Let's cast our sensibilities aside and forget about them. Let's behave the way that real lovers do without the weight of our worlds bearing down on our shoulders. Be my Heart, be my Haven, be my Sanctuary...

Come away with me...

It's Summer... let us renew.


End file.
